Why I’m the Only One Getting in the Way of a Slimmer me!
I need to lose weight.
See, that’s how easy it is to say. I’ll do it again – I need to lose weight.
If ever the saying ‘easier said than done’ held a truer meaning, it is now. I’m writing this while tucking into a big bowl of crunchy thick-cut crisps and looking down at the roll of fat hanging over my not-so-skinny jeans.
Okay, my diet starts tomorrow. Probably.
I, along with about 90% of you reading this, could do with losing a stone or two…that I know I won’t do anything about. Even though every morning I fling my clothes around the bedroom screaming ‘I have nothing to wear, everything in my wardrobe makes me look fucking fat’ I know that my diet won’t be starting any time soon.
It’s not my clothes’ fault I’m fat, or a medical condition, society, the fact a new Burger King has opened down the road from me or because I don’t enjoy exercise or healthy food…it’s just good old fashioned despondency. To lose weight I need to do more than read a glossy mag and marvel at a few Before and After celebrity pictures – I need to change my lifestyle, eat better, move about more and look after myself.
Which takes a lot more energy than just talking about it!
Don’t get me wrong, I am far from lazy. My day starts at 6 am and finishes at midnight. I am a writer, I run my own company, I have two kids, a husband and a house to run. I am a do-er. Believe me, when I want to really do something I will do that mother fucking thing until I am done with it. I will go without sleep, without going out, I will talk of nothing else, I will sweat, bleed and cry over that thing and I will keep doing it until it’s done. But so far my flat stomach goals have not been appealing enough to become my next project. I simply can’t sum up enough can-be-botherdness. Too many other things seem more important than weight loss at the moment…even if I am beginning to avoid my reflection in shop windows and people are asking when the baby is due.
I do want to lose weight (in a click-my-fingers-and-it’s-done way), but I’m not sure I care enough about losing weight to do anything drastic about it. Every day I stare at my post-baby body that is screeching uncontrollably toward forty and think ‘shit, I wish I looked like that twenty year old in that music video. I wish I too could wear hot pants like her without my arse swallowing them whole.’ But I’m eating an ice cream on the sofa while watching the pop star on the telly and moaning about how unfair it is that she is hotter than me. See where I’m going wrong?
I’m not fat fat, not so bad that anyone has to wheel me about because my legs will crumble beneath me (to be fair I’ve only ever gone up and down two stone since I was a teen) but it’s the flabby bits that are getting to me. The fact that my arse is puckered and no longer smooth, that dough-like squidge oozes out from above my bra, and my upper arms keeping swinging a long time after I have stopped moving them. My stomach is made up of two rolls, like I’m smuggling a couple of kid’s rubber rings up my top, and my hips have their own ‘Wide Load’ sign. Then after looking at all that flab, I sigh resignedly, pull on a baggy jumper, turn the TV on and finish off that nice cake in the fridge.
I can’t remember the last time I did some proper exercise (I can’t even bloody spell the word), unless you count sex – and even then I can’t touch my toes (I’ll give you a minute to work that one out…ah, yep, okay). Sometimes I may spice things in the bedroom, be the cowgirl for a change and practice a few squats. But seriously, who enjoys the kind of sex that makes your thighs burn? Not my husband, that’s for sure. Not when I have to stop at four strides, just when it was getting interesting for him, because it’s too much effort and my legs are shaking.
I have an impressively long list of excuses as to why I can’t exercise – maybe you would like to borrow a few?
– It’s too cold outside
– It’s too hot outside
– It’s too windy/ rainy/ outsidey outside
– I don’t have any work-out clothes/ they don’t fit me/they are at the bottom of the wash basket (no doubt since my last PE lesson 20 years ago)
– I have a lot of work to do
– I’m too tired
– I have a meeting
– I don’t want to waste money at a gym I will never go to
– My ankle still hurts from the last time I went for a mild jog
– I have a cold/ feel ill
– I don’t want to do it on my own
– I have a house full of builders so can’t even take a shower afterwards
– I’m on my period sir and my mum has written me a sick note
You get the idea.
But you know what’s funny? I know I can do it! I lost two stone for my wedding day in 6 months and kept it off for years. I feel bloody fantastic after a workout, sometimes I go a month or two having regular jogging/yoga/jogging alternate mornings. Then things get in the way – kids get ill, people come to stay, a client wants an early morning meeting – and I go back to pastry breakfasts and one minute car journeys.
So I’ve given myself an ultimatum. Change my life, do some exercise and stop eating so much crap…or shut the fuck up about my flabby bits. I’m off for a lie down on the sofa with my hot chocolate and croissant to have a think about my conundrum.
